FACS for Body Language

Wednesday, October 19th, 2011 by Cliff.

Invitation to professionals working in the fields of emotional intelligence, body language and deception detection.

We would just like to announce that we have been working on a taxonomy of Body Language for the last 18 months and will be launching the framework in the new year for testing if thats of any interest?

It is a comprehensive framework that takes the same approach that FACS ( Facial Action Coding System ) does to the face – just applied to the body. As you can imagine it is a huge piece of work to encapsulate all the body positions and movements that may communicate something to others. It is now in a format that we can release though we expect the refinement of the model to run for seven years+.

We have stopped short of covering the 200 sign languages’ ‘signals’ though the taxonomy breaks down to every part of the skeleton and joints (especially hands and arms) and we now believe it will cope with any gesture, signal, symbol you can imagine – whether they mean anything to any culture, club, profession or generation… or not (yet!).

Please note that we are not even considering interpretation of each ‘signal’ at this stage as, like FACS, this aims to be a common taxonomy only. What they mean to different people and animals will come from the research we will push out and encourage once beta testing is completed. We are even avoiding language descriptors, against a great deal of pressure to include them – to minimise bias and poor translation.

It is purely numbers and videos/photos to allow cross cultural studies.

We are seeking professionals working in the field to peer review the framework early in 2012 and would be keen to hear if you and other members of this group might be interested in taking part? Anyone who is interested can let us know through the link below.

We are keen to hear of interest from professionals/academics who would like to take part and assure any volunteers of proper recognition and access to the developing product.

Thank you for considering this. Please contact us if you are interested.